The Lesser of Two Evils
by humblequill
Summary: A Golden Swan continuing drama. Emma and Gold's complicated relationship takes a turn for the worse when potions and magical artifacts become involved.
1. Chapter 1

The emergency call is fresh in my mind as I traipse through the woodland in hurricane winds. I'm seeking a wooden cabin that I know only too well; the last time I found it was to save Moe French from the beating of his life. I wouldn't be going there in this weather, not with every tree around me threatening to fall and crush me as I walk. I wouldn't be going there.

Except that it's him.

His voice on the phone was broken, racked with sobs of pain. Rather than an ambulance, he called for me to aid him. Found a use for that favour after all.

By the time I reach the cabin it has started to rain, and droplets the size of brazil nuts are soaking through my jeans and trickling down the back of my neck. I find the sodden door and try it. Locked.

"Gold? You in there? This door is locked."

"Break it!" the pain is palpable in every syllable. "Break it down!"

After a few hard bashes the bolt on the other side splinters off, and I'm through, looking in on the scene. A spinning wheel, made from solid oak, has turned on him.

"I can't get it off on my own... it's top-heavy. You need to... overbalance the wheel." Gold struggles with the words, and I can see his already-bad leg is wilting under one of the wheel's legs. "That side."

He throws a weak hand to indicate, and I follow with immediacy. After a moment he pushes, and I guide the direction, pulling down hard on the leg of the wheel that I can grasp. He gives a sudden cry of pain, and I falter.

"Don't! No! It has to be that way."

"It's going to crush your leg!"

"Do it!"

And I do, and he lets out a sickening cry. But in a moment the wheel is off and standing upright against me, and he is flat on his back and breathing deep.

A breakout of hail slams against the frame of the cabin, battering the roof with deafening strikes. I drop to Gold's side and reach for his trouser leg to inspect the damage. His calf is purple and black with bruising.

"You need a doctor."

"No, I just needed freeing."

I gape at him as he starts to sit up. He too looks at the portion of his leg that I've uncovered. And then he straightens his tie.

"Thank you Sheriff, I'll do fine from here."

"You're kidding me, right?"

He just smiles, and it suddenly looks as though the horrific pain has instantly faded.

"I'm a fast healer," is all he offers in reply.

I think he must be in shock, so I rise and drag out my waterlogged cell to reach the hospital. I rattle the phone, holding it up to the ceiling in faint hope. The storm has destroyed the signal, and there's no way of transporting him out of the woods with that kind of injury. I guess I'll have to wait for the weather to clear.

"Well I think I'm staying with you, like it or not."

"I don't blame you," Gold replies. "You'll be stoned to death in that tempest."

He shuffles himself into an upright position and pulls the leg of his trouser back into place. He cricks his neck one way, then the other, and I stand waiting for the realisation of serious injury to kick in. But it doesn't.

"You're seriously not in any pain?"

He quirks an eyebrow at me. "It was agony when the weight was on it, I assure you."

He looks at his watch, then back at me. "Could you pass me that whiskey?"

I look around to follow his gaze, and see the two-thirds-full bottle. Perhaps that explains some of this strangeness. I take the bottle to him, lingering as a I stand over him with it. He takes it from my hands and twists the cap.

"Care to join me?" He asks after a swig.

Admittedly, I can think of better ways to spend the night. But going out in those raging winds is highly unappealing. I settle beside him and take the bottle, gulping a measure of liquid fire. It sears my throat.

"Nice blend." I pass the bottle back.

"Scotland's own. Always the best kind."

He isn't kidding. The after-effects come in waves, like a warm tide washing over me from the feet up. Gold lifts the bottle to his lips for a more satisfying gulp, and I find that I'm watching his throat bob as he swallows. He drops the bottle down into his lap wish a slosh.

He checks his watch again, then reaches past the bottle and over his injured leg. He feels it tentatively. He sets the bottle down beside me.

"Should be okay now."

"Oh come on," I say with a laugh, "that's just stu-"

Gold rises spryly to his feet, bending the bad leg to test it out.

"-pid."

I sit in amazement as he walks, with his usual mild limp, over to his cane, and then back again carrying it.

"That'll do nicely."

I get to my feet, feeling the whiskey-red flush in my cheeks.

"Okay, what did you put in that?" I wave a hand at the bottle. "Cause you're not doing that, it can't be right."

I step forward and drop down in front of him, raising the leg of his tailored pants again. The bruises have disappeared. I get up again sharply, put my hands on my hips.

"Have you drugged me? Or is this a prank?"

He considers the idea, runs his tongue out quickly over his lips as he thinks.

"It would be a pretty elaborate joke, don't you think?"

A strange feeling like a tingly headache starts in the back of my skull.

"I don't get it."

"I told you," he says with a smile. "I'm a fast healer. But you can't heal if you're still being hurt. That's why I needed you."

One of my eyes starts to blur. The fiery taste of the whiskey burns in the pit of my stomach.

"Then you're magic."

"Yes."

I squint at him, toppling on one foot and keeping balance with the other.

"Okay..."

He steps towards me, puts a steadying hand on my shoulder.

"But I can't let you remember that, I'm afraid."

I can feel my head yearning to hang down, like I'm going to fall asleep where I stand.

"So the whiskey?"

He grins widely.

"From my homeland. A special brew. It will make you forget."

As my balance gives in I fall into his arms, and he guides me onto the bench, props me up by the wall. He settles beside me, watching my face.

"But you drank it too... so you'll forget."

He laughs serenely. "It would appear so."

"Then... take this," I say, my eyes starting to close. I grab the lapel of his jacket, pulling him closer.

"Take this."

My lips touch his for one electric moment, and then everything goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

It is some days after the hailstorm that I happen to see Sheriff Swan again. Having not been accosted by her immediately after the events of the cabin, I find myself with the assurance that the potion worked its trick and absorbed her memories of the magic she witnessed.

It only works on humans, of course.

Creatures of the darkness cannot forget magic, no matter how they might try.

It is evening when I see her, and she is dressed in her usual leather ensemble, being pulled along the street by Ruby. The waitress wears her unmissable going-out gear, and drags the sheriff to the entrance of the only nightclub in town.

I walk swiftly to the entrance, where the security man stands in Ruby's way.

"No i.d., no access," I can hear him insisting.

"You heard him Ruby, let's go," says Emma, tugging her arm.

"I'm not gonna drink, I just wanna dance!"

Security looks over Ruby's shoulder as I approach. He nods at me.

"Good evening boss."

Emma turns to face me, and the lack of abject horror on her face suggests that my memory potion has definitely cleared her mind.

"Boss?" She asks. "Let me guess, you own this place too?"

"As it would happen," I reply.

I look at the two of them for a moment, Ruby in all her eagerness, and Emma clearly not wanting to stay here. She thinks she's had a lucky escape from a night in the club.

"Gareth, let these ladies in would you?"

The guard looks at me with curiosity, but he obeys and moves away from the door. Ruby beams at me.

"Thanks Mr G.!"

She barges in, leaving Emma and I at the door. The sheriff looks put-upon and disappointed. I rather like the mixture of expressions. I incline my head to her with half a smile and enter the club, heading downstairs.

The dance floor exudes the familiar scent of femininity, and Ruby is already on it most eagerly as I skirt around its edge. At the bar my tender fetches my preferred drink, and I take my tumbler up to the mezzanine overlooking the floor.

When Emma eventually emerges into the mass of young people, Ruby calls her to floor. She does not go, instead she moves to the same spot at the bar where I stood, and shows her i.d.. She is presented with a cocktail sort of drink. Ruby joins her after a moment, talking into her ear over the throb of the dance beat.

It reminds me of the feeling of having that face so close to mine. Only a few days ago I knew how it felt to feel her skin brush my cheek and her breath warm my neck, if only for a moment. It makes me wonder whether she believed that she would forget her actions, or whether she wanted me to remember them.

After finishing her drink, Emma sets the ornate glass back on the bar, laughing with Ruby about something I will never hear. Ruby jumps on the balls of her feet excitedly, takes Emma's hands in hers. She appears to be pleading.

I watch the scene unfold against the music. Emma shrugs off her red leather jacket, slipping it onto a seat near the floor. This reveals a halter neck top, and I watch her shake her golden hair back into place over the shapely, smooth line of her neck, see the strands curl down to the part of her back that's exposed.

She moves to the dance floor, and the balcony no longer holds it voyeuristic glory for me. A strange feeling comes over me, as thou I want to be involved with what's happening down there, and it does not sit easy in my mind.

But I go downstairs nonetheless.

I find a dark place to lean that overlooks the floor and have a passing waitress fetch another drink. Emma sways placidly to the beat, talking all the while to Ruby. She smiles more and more. The song reaches its crescendo, and she moves to leave. Then, as if she is reading my mind, Ruby pulls her back and a new beat begins.

This one is slower, and there are strains of synthesised violins behind its electronic baseline. Emma hips sway sidewards to the music, and she raises her arms to the beat. Her body moves in waves, hit by coloured lights from angles that make her hair shine in a rainbow, they light her face as she laughs.

And then she turns with the song, and the laugh is still on her face, but her eyes change. She finds me watching. I had thought myself far enough away, and surrounded by the dark, but she has found me out.

I claim nonchalance and sip my drink, but do not break the look between us. Emma continues to dance, looking to other dancers on the floor, and back at Ruby, exchanging words. But always back at me. Every few moments, as if she's checking that I'm still looking.

I have reached the conclusion that the kiss she stole from me, however brief, meant something to me. And for her to be so eager to have taken it, there must have been some meaning for her.

The song changes again to something more spirited, and this time Emma leaves the floor despite Ruby's pleading. She picks up her jacket and throws it on, then starts rounding the room. She catches my eye. She's coming for me.

"She's eighteen, Gold, and that's awfully creepy."

"I'm sorry?"

"Ruby. Cut it out."

She puts a hand on her hip, and I smile.

"I thought I'd made it fairly clear I was watching you."

The comment startles her, and I see her bite her lip. After a moment embarrassment sets in on her face, and she tries to match my smile to hide it.

"I don't know if that's better or worse," she quips.

I finish my drink, feel her eyes on me over the rim of the glass.

"That's a good start."

She narrows her eyes at me.

"A start to what?"

I take up my cane and bring myself closer to her, for just a moment.

"You'll see."

I walk away successful, and I have no need to look back for confirmation of her response. I know how she looks when she's irate, and when she's confused. I read her well. And it will serve me, in time.


	3. Chapter 3

"Isn't it amazing?" Henry asks.

I look at it, truly bemused. It looks like a movie prop, or some sci-fi replica from a godawful movie that I never wish to see.

"Sorry kid," I admit with a sigh, "But... what is it again?"

"It's the dagger of Rumpelstiltskin."

"Right."

Henry sighs as forcibly as his little lungs can muster. He picks up the dagger swiftly.

"Hey come on now, that thing's sharp, you should-"

"Oh it's more than just sharp. It's dangerous. It has magic."

I feel one of those moments coming on where I want to shake him to his senses. After a moment it passes, leaving me with a sad lump in my chest. He must see it in my eyes, because he's swift to move on the conversation.

"I found it in the cemetery."

His topic shift is successful, and the sadness falls away to an immediate sense of what regretfully term parent-ness.

"Excuse me, you were in the cemetery why?"

He just shrugs like it's no big deal. "I followed August there."

"Okay..." I begin, making a mental note to return to the following strangers rule book later on.

"He was looking shifty," Henry insists, "and he went to visit a headstone. And when he was gone, I went up to where he stood, and it was behind the same headstone."

"A dagger?"

"Yup."

"Just lying around in a cemetery?"

"Pretty coincidental huh?"

He smiles a cheeky grin at me, and I could almost forget that he's so obviously nuts. Almost.

"Well you can't hold onto it. Too dangerous for you to be carrying a knife."

"I agree," he says happily, handing it to me.

I take a look at the blade, and sure enough the name is etched into the metal. Rumpelstiltskin. Of all the damned things for him to find, it had to be something to do with a fairytale. It just _had_ to.

"You still don't believe me."

I can see his sad, downturned face reflecting in the blade.

"It just doesn't... feel magical."

"Then let's test it."

I can't resist the opportunity to try and prove to him that this thing isn't really magical. An annoyed part of me thinks that Henry already suspects that, and it's exactly the reason that he's suggesting a test run.

"Fine. So who's Rumpelstiltskin?"

Henry furrows his brow.

"That one I'm not sure of," he admits, "But we'll know once he starts reacting to the dagger's power."

"Okay," I play along. "And what is this power, exactly?"

Henry grins. "The one who wields the dagger controls him. You can make him do whatever you want."

I grin back at the prospect. And I can already think of one man in particular I'd love to have that power over.

The thought of Gold's words in the club has been with me this whole week, and in due course I've avoided him at every opportunity since. In some miraculous pattern of movements, he seems to be popping up everywhere that I am. The Diner that we're in now, which he visits to collect money. The Post Office, which he visits to collect money. It appears that he even owns the cobblers where I got my boots repaired.

Every time I see him, he makes no effort to speak to me. Just smiles to himself as I make my excuses and leave. If I had the power of that dagger for real, I'd wipe the damn smile from his stupidly handsome face.

"Emma?"

I look up from the counter and see Henry looking at me, with a ghost of Gold's smile in the back of my mind. His little face is contorted in annoyance. Apparently with me.

"I was... in a deep thought."

"So let's test it!" he's almost jumping in his seat at the prospect.

"Right now?"

He nods as if he's totally in charge of the situation. "We should rule out some people now whilst you have some time left in your break. Then we can pick it up again after you finish this afternoon."

Henry busies himself getting out a pen and paper, and I look around the diner at the assembled victims of his insane experiment. Leroy skulks in a corner cradling a lunchtime whiskey. And there's Ruby of course, waltzing round in her little shorts in a cloud of her own cheeriness. And then there's Doctor Whale, eyeing her creepily from the nearest seat he could get to her station.

And then the door opens, and my stomach does a little twist. Because I happen to be looking straight into Gold's eyes, and that particular motion wasn't on my to do list. Ever again.

He ignores me of course, and takes a seat at the counter some way down from us. He orders coffee and his next payment from Granny. She obliges as I spy from the corner of my vision.

And there it is.

Just as he gets his cup filled, that tiny wicked smile creeps onto his lips. Lost in his own private joke.

Furious, I look back to the counter to discover the dagger has vanished. I look to Henry, startled, but he is still present and correct.

"Where's the-?"

"Under your scarf. Thought we'd better put it away in case anyone spots us."

I nod, my mind still on Gold, whose smile is now slowly boring its way through the back of my head, possibly looking for my last nerve.

"You need to hold the handle, and think of making somebody do something," Henry instructs me quietly. "And I'll spot anyone acting unusual."

"Sure," I say, and chance another look down the counter. Gold drains his cup, and then that awful smile is back in place. I hate what he's done to me, the fact that he could unhinge me so easily.

"So, what do you want to make them do?"

The only feeling I can currently channel into that blade has to be the fire-fuelled rage that Gold's smug attitude is putting me in.

"Heat," is my reply. "I'll make him feel hot... really hot."

"Excellent."

Henry takes my hand and slips it under the scarf to where the dagger rests. I grip the hilt to satisfy him.

"Now focus on the heat."

I don't have to.

_"I thought I'd made it fairly clear I was watching you."_

Who honestly has the nerve to say that? And then to just go so smugly, like there's some big joke that I'm not in on, something he's got planned that involves me. It was hard enough to get him out of my head before those words crossed his lips.

How he even had an inkling that those words would affect me so much is way beyond me. Whatever I've felt in private, I've been careful not give him any signal that I'm interested in him. Because I'm not. Not really.

He just happens to be the type I would have gone for. A while ago, before my little stint in the big house. But Henry's dad taught me the error of those ways. And Gold will not be the bastard that sets me back on that road.

"Emma, Emma, Emma," Henry whispers excitedly, tugging the arm that isn't holding the dagger. The motion breaks me from my angry thoughts for a moment.

"Look!" He squeals, pointing his pen down the counter.

I turn my gaze, expecting to see that somebody has perhaps arbitrarily taken their jacket off and it's set Henry off into a whole new conspiracy.

Gold has his head on the counter and he's asking for aspirin.

And he's sweating.


	4. Chapter 4

With Henry gone off to do research into our newfound Rumpelstiltskin, I find the only logical thing to do is finish my day at work. It's a coincidence, of course, that Gold was coming down with some flu bug at the time that we were there in the diner. Bugs go around. They strike without warning. Even if the guy looked perfectly healthy a minute before.

It had nothing to do with me.

The dagger sits in my bag, and it's presence is a sudden concern. I'm going to look weird if anybody catches me with that thing. But I can't dump it when it means so much to Henry. I guess I'll have to call it a prop for Henry's drama class at school. Mary Margaret will back me up without question, I'm sure, she's good for stuff like that.

It had nothing to do with me.

I'm not sure why I have to remind myself of that fact. But it feels important to do so right now, lest I too slip into the fantastic tales of Henry Mills. Perhaps a runaway imagination runs in the family.

When the door to the station goes I am too lost in my concerns to hear it. I find myself staring into my coffee mug when his voice startles me.

"Miss Swan," he says. "At last I've found you in a place where we can talk alone."

I only look as far as his shoes to start with. They are perfect, as they always are. Shiny and expensive.

"It seems you did," I reply, hoping for boredom to translate in my tone. My voice comes out a tad too nervy for my liking.

His chuckle annoys me the second it leaves his mouth.

"I was going to catch you earlier, but I was taken unwell."

He takes a seat opposite my desk, forcing more of himself into my eyeline. I have to look up now for fear that my gaze accidentally falls anywhere that he can make use of. I find his face is expectant and smug, as it always is.

"You don't look so ill now."

"A momentary fever. I expect it was my blood pressure, from the hot coffee."

Despite rueing his appearance in my office, his explanation gives me no small sense of relief. What a simple thing for me to have gotten so worried over. I just nod, thinking about how quickly that mad panic over the dagger has ebbed.

"Still," he says almost happily. "We're here now, aren't we?"

And we're back to panic. It's smaller than the other kind, but having no idea what game he's playing with me strikes a flicker of that same fear back into me. I'm sure he sees it in my face, because his smile widens.

A flash of something green hits my vision, and for second I'm certain that something has exploded in the room. But then all I see is Gold looking at me like I'm past my use-by date.

"Are you feeling alright?" He asks.

I can't answer the question. A strange compulsion to hold the dagger strikes me, and I cannot resist the temptation.

"Just a little headache," I reply, leaning forward on my desk. "But I'm sure it will have passed by, oh say, the time you leave my office?"

That chuckle again. It grates on my nerves. I reach into my bag under the desk, hoping he won't see me, but also hoping, just for a moment, that the dagger could really serve my purpose. I find the hilt of the small sword.

Gold suddenly gets to his feet.

"Another time then," he says. "Seeing as you're under the weather."

And with that he's going, and I hold onto the dagger for all it's worth. It granted my wish. It made him leave.

And then I tell myself that I'm being ridiculous, and that he left because he enjoys messing me around. But I keep hold of the dagger, and a thought crosses my mind.

_Come back._

He stops dead outside my office, looking back in through the glass. I feel that I have never really understood the phrase dumbstruck until now. Gold begins to enter the doorway again.

"Unless you don't want me to go?" He says, a wicked grin playing on his lips.

I can't make out what's going on, and the only thing that's real is the hilt of the weapon now concealed in my lap under the desk. It frightens me to think that this could really be happening, but I cannot let the blade go.

"You want to talk about it, don't you?" He says, totally oblivious to my stupor.

"No," is all the reply I can give.

His smile turns quizzical.

"Then what?" He asks.

I decide that there is only one way to prove that this dagger is not really doing anything. I have to think of something crazy, something so inappropriate and out there that it just could not happen right at this moment now. And the first thing that comes to my head I immediately regret. But it's there and it sticks, and I can't shake it off.

_Kiss me. _

Gold rounds my desk in an instant, seats himself on the edge of it in front of me. He just watches me for a moment, eyes so intensely focused that they may well be looking through me into another place entirely. He leans in, takes my chin in his hand, and the impossibility of the thing that is about to happen terrifies me.

As our lips graze I drop the dagger. Gold instantly breaks away, looking confused.

When the dagger clangs to the ground, he and I both look down at it. He takes in a sharp gasp that tears my gaze away from it. I find his face a picture of shock and fear. He stares unblinkingly at the blade on the floor.

And then without warning his arms are on mine, and he pushes me down in my chair hard, forces me to stay where I am.

"Where did you get this?" He asks in a growl, his usually settled face a picture of rage.

So much has happened that I do not fully register the fear I ought to have right now. He shakes me in the chair, searching my face with dark and angry eyes.

"Where Emma?" He demands. "Where?"


	5. Chapter 5

Emma is silent for several moments, and eventually I release her from my grip, giving her up to her obvious shock. It will take time for her to come around. Instead I turn to the dagger on the office floor, stooping down to pick it up. I see my name still etched into the shining blade, as fresh as it was all those decades ago when it was newly formed.

Rumpelstiltskin.

And now the princess knows my name, and no amount of my potions can reverse the effects of this kind of magic. Taking control of the Dark One has touched her mind, tainted it with the darkest of magics. There is nothing for it but the truth.

Or a version of it, at least.

I trace a line down the blade with my finger, and see Emma finally stirring in the corner of my eye. She looks at me with eyes wide, then down to the dagger with a quiver on her lip that would be quite comely we're I not in a state of shock myself.

I almost kissed her, after all, under the dagger's command.

A connection I ought to have made sooner suddenly emerges.

I almost kissed her, under her command.

"You wanted me to kiss you," I state, resuming my place opposite her desk.

The fear in her face breaks a little.

"Could we, just for a moment, focus on the fact that that thing is... is..."

"Magic," I finish.

She shakes her head a little at first, but then settles again warily.

"Magic," she repeats, "Right."

We sit in silence for a moment, and another thought surfaces as my shock begins to ebb away. She still doesn't know what the dagger _means_, even if she knows what it _does_.

"What's the matter Sheriff?" I ask. "Don't you believe in voodoo?"

Her mouth is open a little in the short pause that it takes to collect herself.

"Not as a rule," she replies.

"And yet..." I say, letting the dagger come to rest on the table between us.

Emma leans forward to take another look at it, then shakes off her stunned visage.

"You've slipped me something."

I am taken aback.

"Sorry?"

"Don't play that with me Gold," she says harshly. "This isn't real. You've drugged me. You must have."

I raise an eyebrow. "Why is that always your first conclusion with me?"

She furrows her brow at this, and I know I've said too much. The magic of the potion is only so-so, any simple trigger could cause her to remember the events of the hailstorm night.

"When have I ever said-"

"Anyway," I cut in carefully. "I'll just take this off your hands now, and-"

She bats my hand from the blade, snatching it up quickly.

"Oh no no no. You think I'm gonna let you just run off with this?"

"Better to keep it with you, eh?" I ask, frustrated with myself that I didn't keep it in my grasp when I had the chance. But there is something about her that so often leaves me off my guard. It was her I thought of when the Spinning Wheel fell on me that night, when I wasn't concentrating on moving it in the right way.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks.

I watch the dagger carefully as she passes it from palm to palm.

"Not to be pedantic about it, but you did just force me to kiss you with that blade's power. God only knows what you'll do if I let you keep hold of it."

Her face flushes, and I know I've hit my mark dead centre. She stumbles over the next few words.

"I... I just... I wanted to think of something extreme," she rationalises on. "Something you'd be unlikely to do on your own."

The set up of her words is too sweet an opportunity not to take.

"Then you thought wrong about the kissing."

"I-"

She begins to talk almost as though she was expecting me to say something else. Then my phrasing sinks in, and she is silent. She returns to looking at the dagger.

"So..." Emma begins again, after a few awkward moments that I relish in. "Seeing as we're both residents of Crazy Town right now, I'm going to try to follow your logic."

"Go on then."

She waves the dagger at me rather too casually.

"This thing is full of voodoo magic?"

"Correct," I reply.

"Uh huh."

She takes the information in.

"And it controls you?"

I nod.

"Just you?"

I nod again.

"That's generally how voodoo works, dear."

She glowers at my tone of voice.

"So if I have this... I'm the boss of you."

I see where this is going now, and I deeply regret my last patronising words to her.

"Emma," I begin, but I can feel a kind of panic taking me by the back of the head. Her hand is on the hilt of the blade and she is silent, just watching me with a shadow of a smile.

"Now, Emma, just consider-" I begin again, but it is no use. The force of the blade is upon me, and there is no escape. I hear her words in my head.

_No more talking, Gold._

And I am silent. And though I can think of many silver-tongued phrases to persuade her out of abusing the blade's power, they will no longer aid me.

_Stand up._

I stand, and as soon as I do the command is altered.

_Sit down. _

I do. And she chuckles to herself. The look on her face is hard to distinguish, somewhere between amusement and amazement. She contemplates the blade again, changing hands. For a moment as she changes, I feel the strength to speak returns.

"Please," is all that comes out.

And this time when she speaks it isn't in my head, though I can feel her presence there pressing in on my mind.

"Just one more," she says, her voice breathless. "I just need to prove it to myself. Just one more."

I close my eyes, alert to all the horrifying prospects that could now befall me. And what comes next is both a shock and a relief.

_Cry._

I see her way of thinking. The tears come so instantly that no-body could fake such a reaction. A sudden sadness sweeps me and I feel my face contort, but I am almost absent from the scene. Her shocked expression is a mile away, and I am lost to the blackness of the Dark Blade's trance.

And then I am not.

I feel my wet face being cupped by hands roughened from weeks of digging through the woods and locking up rusty jail cells. She finds my eyes, and I look into the depths of hers, see that she too is teary now.

"I'm sorry." She speaks softly. It's a tone I've never heard her use before. "I... I believe you now. I'm sorry."


	6. Chapter 6

In some ways, it might have been easier if she had just been cruel and amused by having control of me. But helping me back into my seat, touching my face, watching my every moment in case I am about to speak. It's more difficult to handle than I had imagined.

It was one thing to have some sense of desire towards her, and one thing to consider the possibilities of a forbidden fruit scenario. But to have her feel something towards me that is below the simple surface of desire is rather different.

I chance a look at her face, and find that my conclusions are too correct for me to handle. I can see it in her eyes. She's caring about me.

"Are you sure you won't let me take the dagger?"

Emma rises from where she was crouched to study my face. She sits back on the edge of her desk, casting her eyes to the blade on the floor.

"What would you do with it?"

"I... I don't know."

"Would you destroy it?"

A shudder runs through me at the prospect.

"No," I reply. "I wouldn't like to think what could... happen to me, if I did."

"Oh."

I try another look at her face, and find her looking away, lost in a thought. Shock still seems to be the primary emotion in her features, though her body language is less shaky than it was before.

It's difficult to believe that my day started with a conspiracy to play games with her. I was hoping to catch her embarrassed by my presence, perhaps try my luck with a little less cryptic flirting than before. She had kissed me once of her own accord, after all.

Almost twice.

Though the second attempt could have happened under better circumstances, it happened nonetheless.

"Do you think we could talk about that kiss now?"

The sentence snaps her vision back to me. A more familiar expression crosses her features, and suddenly I feel a little more comfortable than before.

"Just when I thought that nothing else could surprise me today."

"I thought we may as well get everything on the table at once."

Emma stoops to pick up the dagger, handling it much more cautiously than before. She passes it to me. I rest it on my lap, looking expectantly to her face. She eyes me curiously.

"Emma," I begin, trying not to smile too much, "You can't blame a man for wanting to know where he stands."

She stands at the desk and fidgets with a coffee mug behind her absently.

"You're telling me you don't already know?"

"You're a difficult woman to read."

This last phrase of mine is a lie, of course, but one I know she'd like to believe.

"Fine," she says, adopting a more matter-of-fact tone. "I can't help the fact that I think you're... attractive." It looks like she has to spit the last word out in spite of herself.

"And that's all?" I press, realising almost instantly that I sound too eager for my own good.

She cocks her head at me.

"I just found out that magic can be real. Give me a break here."

I nod quietly, and my thoughts drift back to the dagger for a moment. She follows my eyes.

"How about I lock that up here for you? There's a safe hidden in that wall."

I follow her indications to a set of posters about police policy.

"You can have the key," she adds.

I rise from the chair, handing her back the dagger. She takes it, and I see her face is turning a little red.

"I'd appreciate that," I say.

She turns her gaze away, but she nods. There is more than one confidence between us at this moment. The strangeness of our situation has bred a kind of trust I hadn't anticipated. And though I know that this would be an apt time to lock away the blade and leave, something almost as strong as the dagger's magic is pressing on me to stay.

I step towards her, and she does not move away.

When my face is level with hers, she seems determined to keep her head down. But she still doesn't try to get away.

So I raise a hand to her chin and turn her head up for her. Her eyes remain closed. Without the hesitation that I can imagine her eyes must hold, an odd relaxation sinks into me.

I lean in, so close I can hear her lips parting, feel her soft breath against my own lips. She finally makes a move towards me.

"Wait," I say.

"What?" She asks in a breathless whispers.

"Could you put the dagger down?"

And something amazing happens. Emma laughs. Her eyes flicker open and fix on my face, and she laughs in a small, honest way. I hear the blade clatter to the ground for the third and final time of the evening, but I cannot look away from her face even to see where it lands.

I am still holding her face in one hand. She leans into the touch, and then beyond it, grazing her lips against mine for a hesitant moment. She almost makes to move away again, but I force the grip a little, keeping her beside me.

The kiss is nothing like I expected, nothing in any way similar to the passionate, almost desperate affair I might have expected a few days ago. A kiss borne of teasing and anger it is not.

Her lips are earnest, and I can feel a small smile in the muscles of her face.

And then she pulls away more forcibly, and I let her go more from surprise than willing. I watch her look away, considering, watch her suck her bottom lip in for a second as she thinks. I can taste her coffee on my lower lip.

Then she meets my eyes again, and I know that our moment has passed. Her hesitant gaze, the uncertain slump in her shoulder. It's easy to know what she's about to say.

"I can't do this right now."

She stumbles to the dagger, and then to the desk for a key to the secret safe. I turn on my heel, stepping slowly to the doorway of her office. She spies me as I am almost through it.

"Don't you want this?"

I turn, see her holding up the key, the safe behind the posters exposed.

"Keep it," I reply, turning to leave again.

"Gold-" she begins, but I can't bring myself to hear what she wants to tell me.

"I trust you," I say as I walk away.


	7. Chapter 7

After a quiet evening of self-loathing and re-evaluating my entire belief system, the inviting smell of Mary Margaret's Saturday morning breakfast makes me feel a little more balanced. I find her at the kitchen window, looking out at the birds, as bacon sizzles away happily in a pan. I creep to steal a piece of crispy heaven, but she spots me before I get too near.

"Hands, Emma" she says without turning.

"Sorry," I reply. "Shall I sit at the table like a good little girl?"

Mary Margaret laughs, turning to tend to the various niceties cooking on the stovetop. "That would be a nice change."

I sit down at the table and pour myself some coffee, and the thought of Gold's lips suddenly rushes back into my head. I suppress it quickly with a gulp of coffee, only to scorch my mouth in the effort. Under the table I run a hand over my pocket, checking that the key to the safe with the dagger in it's still there. After an exhausting night of trying to forget, he seems to be all I can remember.

"You're still troubled."

I look up as Mary Margaret puts a heap of delicious breakfast in front of me. Her face is even, and her tone gives nothing away.

"Me?" I ask. "Troubled when? I'm fine."

She sits down with me.

"Oh sure. Like you were last night, you mean?"

I shudder to think what impression I must've given her, storming to my room like a bratty kid, throwing stuff against the wall in frustration, crashing down on my bed when all else failed.

"I had a stressful day," I eventually reply, starting to eat in the hope of ending the conversation.

"So I heard," she adds, but my mouth is now too full to ask from whom. Or to stop her from telling me. Mary Margaret can see it, how I'm trying to chew faster so I can lead her off topic, so instead she just carries on quickly in that mousy little way of hers.

"I saw Mr Gold leaving the office when I was walking home from work. And then you came home in that godawful mood and locked yourself up in there."

At this she nods in the direction of the spare room, and I decide another mouthful of French toast isn't going to hurt, seeing as whatever speculations she has about Gold and I could never compare to what actually occurred.

"So I went over to see him last night."

I catch myself seconds from choking on the bread.

"Y-?"

I try to talk through the food with no success, so Mary Margaret just continues like it's no big deal.

"I wanted to know if something big had happened with Regina, thought maybe that's why he was there with you. I was going to see if I could help you out, since you seemed so distressed."

I finally manage to clear my airways enough to speak.

"Did you tell him I was distressed?" I ask, fearing the inevitable answer.

"I mentioned it," she replies. "And then Mr Gold said the most curious thing."

"I'll bet he did," I say instinctively.

Mary Margaret lets go of a strange little corner of the mouth smile.

"He said he rather thought that... he might be the cause of it." There is a short pause. "But not in a nasty way, like he usually talks. He seemed... kinda sad."

The honesty in her face is pretty scary, and it often makes me want to tell her everything about how I feel. Very scary, considering I was the little girl who wouldn't even confide in her teddy bear in case it went telling.

"Sad?" is all I can say at first.

Mary Margaret nods.

I return to my breakfast, and she begins to eat hers, clearly fearing that she's stepped over a line. Which she has. Definitely. But I can't help forgiving her, because 'sad' is an interesting development, and I'm grateful to know about it. Perhaps his flirty toying with me wasn't just a mind game after all.

After some minutes of quietly eating, my thoughts swirl up to the surface, and I know I'm going to have to let some of them out for my own good.

"He is."

Mary looks at me. "Is what?" She asks.

"The cause of it."

Another silence falls. Mary Margaret sets her cutlery down deliberately.

"Do you... want to tell me why?"

I close my eyes, knowing it's the only way I'm going to let anything go. Maybe if I just say it quickly, as though the room is empty, and then it'll be done. Mary Margaret will talk sense into me, and I'll start to move on.

"He kissed me." I try to ignore the little gasp she lets out. "Or... maybe I kissed him. It was confusing... Mutually confusing, I guess."

When I open my eyes, a mild shock has covered my roomie's features. But she does her best to stay rational, in that calm little way of hers.

"Okay," she begins. "That explains a lot about Mr Gold's behaviour when I was talking to him."

I can only imagine what she could mean.

"Maybe he thought you might already know," I suggest.

She nods. "Yeah, I'd buy that. He was shy, you know. Well, I mean, not shy... He was-"

"Embarrassed."

"Yeah."

I let out a breath that sounds like a sad little laugh. I know how he feels, and I can just see him squirming on the spot when Mary Margaret appeared at his door. In a far corner of my mind the thought makes me a little happier.

"I guess there's only one question really," Mary Margaret suddenly says.

I find her eyes. "Is there?" I ask, certain that if she knew the full particulars of my afternoon with Gold, she would have several more questions in mind.

"Do you want to kiss him again?"

"Ah, that question," I reply. The thought of it has plagued me almost as much as the dagger, the two things being so equally impossible, and yet so immensely real. "Well, I don't want to say yes."

Mary Margaret raises her eyebrows so far back that they find her hairline and blend in.

"But you're not saying no, either," she adds, a little taken aback.

I can feel my own eyes widening at what I've just admitted.

"Crap," I say.

And, quite out of nowhere, the doorbell rings. We both look to the door for a moment, astonished.

"Speak of the devil..." Mary Margaret says slowly.

I get up, heading for the door, and a strange excitement comes over me. If it is Gold, then what does it mean? Why is he here? If I let him in, can I be sure of what will happen? If I don't, will I regret it as much as stopping that kiss last night?

I find my hand is quivering as I reach the doorknob, so I take it with a forced kind of steadiness, and swing it open, looking straight into the handsome face-

Of August W. Booth.


	8. Chapter 8

I let August in and we settle at the table. Mary Margaret gives him a coy smile and slides away.

"I've just seen Henry," he says, running a finger along the table-top. "He asked me about Rumpelstiltskin. Is that one not in his book?"

"I guess not." I reply in a measured tone.

Henry. His curious face settles into the front of my mind, and I remember with a sudden dread that he knows about Gold's vulnerability. After making a note to find him and sort out a few things, I surface to find August studying my face with a smile.

It's a warm smile, and it makes me feel instantly that I'm doing something wrong by having him here.

Which is ridiculous, of course. Because if August's company is wrong, that would imply that another company in particular is right. Which it isn't. Or shouldn't be, at least.

"You okay Emma?"

He puts a hand on my hand, and my stomach squirms awkwardly. I try to brush it off as a friendly gesture.

"I've just got stuff on my mind today," I try for a calm tone.

August fixes his too-kind eyes on me.

"Anything you want to share?"

There are several things I most definitely do not want to share. Especially not with August, whose opinion of Gold seems to be going down daily for no apparent reason. But one wild idea springs to mind. Of all the people I could question about magic, August strikes me as the least likely to laugh in my face.

"Actually, can I ask you something?"

He nods. "Shoot."

"Do you believe in… voodoo?"

August raises his eyebrows, eyes suddenly gleaming. I turn my face downward, ready for him to chuckle.

"Absolutely," he replies.

I dare not look up, because his sincere tone gives me confidence, and I don't want to ruin it by seeing his face.

"You think it exists?"

"I sure do."

I chance a look, relieved to see his face is deadly serious. I can't see any reason why he'd play that expression unless he's telling the truth, so I take a breath and dive right into the pool of crazy before us.

"I had a weird experience the other night, I saw something…"

His eyes widen. "What?" He asks.

"I can't tell you," I reply without even thinking. "I… I promised I wouldn't give specifics."

"Okay," he says, "But you think you saw… magic? Magic actually happening?"

I suppress a sigh. "I don't know. It's crazy right?"

He considers this for a moment. "Not really."

I try not to laugh at his casual tone.

"Well, do you believe that hypnosis works?" He asks.

The question catches me off-guard a little.

"Sure. On some people."

"Okay, so why not voodoo? Same principle. Telekinetic control."

He sits back in his chair as though that's the end of it, and I decide to take the opportunity to get out while I can. Between admitting some sort of feelings for Gold to Mary Margaret and admitting witnessing magic to August, I'm just about ready to hide in my room again for the day.

"So, you were telling me about Henry?"

* * *

I stroll the shop floor checking that everything is in its proper place, surprised to the point of a physical jolt when the phone rings. It is sensible to expect bad news, perhaps more kind requests from the Mayor. I consider letting it ring.

Eventually curiosity wins me over, and I reach over the counter to pick up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Gold?"

I start at Emma's frightened tone.

"Emma. It's me. What's happened?"

She lets out a shaky breath that crackles on the line.

"Sorry, I guess I'm kind of in shock. Or coming out of shock." There is a brief pause, I listen hard for her brittle voice. "I'm just really mixed up about this dagger thing."

"It's shaken you up?" I offer.

"You're telling me."

"Is the dagger still protected?"

"Yeah," she replies. "It's still in the station safe, and I have the key right here."

"Well, there's not much to worry about then."

I can tell I have said the wrong thing almost immediately, as her next tone is close to tears.

"Oh sure, apart from that… say… magic exists, and you know all about it, and now I have this crazy responsibility to you… not to mention how we-"

She stops there, and I wait tensely on the line, but she does not continue the same line of thought.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I don't know why I called you. I'll just-"

"No," I jump in quickly, my own eagerness betraying me. "Why don't you meet me tonight? I… Maybe I can help explain things a little more?"

The temptation must be considerable; I hear her sniffing in a breath on the phone as she considers the proposal.

"Tonight? Tonight where?"

"At the station?"

She leaps in over my sentence as quickly as I can utter it.

"No, I don't want to be near that thing. I need to be… away from it, if you're going to calm me down at all."

"The club then?"

She swallows loudly on the line.

"That sounds better, yeah."

"Eight-thirty?"

"Sure, okay."

An awkward moment falls, but she does not end the call. I can hear her tense breaths, like she's still shaking.

"Emma," I try, a strange concern welling up in me. I hadn't expected her shock to be so immense. "It'll be all right, you know. I'll be fine, and so will you."

"Yeah," she says with a suddenly stronger tone. She takes in a single deep breath. "Yeah. We'll be fine."

A little smile forces itself quite unbidden into the corner of my mouth.

"I'll see you tonight then?"

"Right… Should I meet you outside?" She asks.

"No, you go in," I reply, the thought of a less lonely evening settling comfortably into my senses, "I'll find you."


	9. Chapter 9

There's a happier beat to the Saturday night music of the club, and countless joyful faces dancing under the coloured lights of the dancefloor. I watch them from the upstairs balcony, playing with the straw in my drink as I wait for Gold to arrive.

I've considered leaving, of course, about four times now, but the pull of the shady spot I'm standing in makes me halt every time I try to move. If I have any chance of coping with the bizarre concoction of magic, daggers and kisses whirling through my senses, I have to stay and hear him out.

I hear the squeak of his cane on the vinyl floor before his footsteps. He comes to stand silently beside me, watching the crowd as I do. From the corner of my eye I catch his profile, his head is hung low, his stance hunched a little.

"How are you feeling?" He asks in a shaky tone.

I look onto into the happy faces of the dancers below.

"Well, I think I'm stopped crying. That's something right?"

"Indeed," he replies, taking in a breath. "Where would you like me to start?"

I turn to him, see his face blank with what I could almost call an earnest gleam in his eyes.

"I think maybe with Rumpelstiltskin," I reply. "Haven't quite got that one figured out yet."

I notice now that he too has a drink, a tumbler of golden liquid that looks temptingly alcoholic. He takes a strained gulp before he speaks again.

"It's an old European superstition," he says.

Enlightenment dawns on me. "That's where you're from? I couldn't place that accent."

"Scotland." Gold smiles with one side of his mouth, but it soon falls away. "Those stories… those fairytales, if you like… they all come from somewhere."

I watch him for a moment, finding his features disturbingly even. I envy how collected he can be about this magic stuff right now, when it feels like I could fall back into chaos at any moment.

"The blade is an instrument…" he begins, faltering slightly here and there, "An instrument of a curse that was put upon me… An attempt to control me."

"Who by?" I ask, and immediately know I've overstepped. Gold looks back out into the dancing crowd below us, his face cast in a half-shadow.

"Enemies," he says evenly, "Though I'm afraid I was also to blame. Most of those who enter into dealings with magic are willing to, believe it or not."

I'd like to believe that he's lying to me, that perhaps this is still some unbelievable game, but every word rings true as it leaves his lips.

"Emma," he says, turning to meet my eyes again. "Wherever did you find that thing?"

I feel slightly comforted by the fact that there's at least one question I can answer.

"Henry found it at the cemetery," I reply. "That mean anything to you?"

Gold pouts his bottom lip as he thinks, and I find myself watching it. A disturbing urge arises that I push away by gulping at my drink.

"Can't say it does," he answers after consideration. "But it feels like it was left there for someone to find."

My eyes flicker from his lips up to his gaze. His expression relaxes a little.

"It would make sense," he continues, "I have a lot of enemies in this town."

His casual tone makes me smile at the fact. He smiles back, and some of the tension I'd been feeling starts to slip.

"Well that's a shocker, Gold, I must say."

"I know," he replies, his grin widening, "Even with all my attempts to be a good citizen."

"Sure," I chip in, "Like arson, robbery, assault and battery…"

Gold breathes out a laugh.

"Well that's a few elephants out of the room," he says.

A lightness takes me over, and I tune in again to the music of the club. The dancey numbers have turned to slower ballads, some couples are getting close down on the dancefloor. When I look back to Gold I find he has stepped closer, and he too is watching the people romancing on the ground floor.

"So, one last kink to straighten out, I think," he states, but he does not take his eyes away from the dancefloor. His face is so close that I can see the tiny flecks of stubble growing back around his jaw.

"Yeah? What's that then?"

"I need to know what those kisses meant, Emma. You can't keep a fellow hanging on like this." He closes his eyes, and when they open again he looks at me with a strange helplessness. "I don't like not knowing things."

The embarrassed feeling comes along right on time, even though I'd suspected that this moment might be coming. But I suck up the feelings as best I can and give him a good square look before I start to speak. After all, I've already admitted to Mary Margaret that there's something between he and I, who's to say this moment's going to be any more awkward than that one?

"All right," I begin, and Gold is immediately attentive, eyes shining at me. "So I have this theory, that if something feels wrong… it is wrong. And you shouldn't do it, no matter how tempting it is."

Gold draws in a breath, the shine falling from his eyes. "I see," he says, looking down to the floor.

"But the really, really spectacularly weird thing about you is…" I look down too in spite of myself, because I can't bear to see his face when he hears what comes next. "It doesn't. It does not feel wrong. Not in any way."

Across my gaze at the floor I see his hand moving up from his pocket until it finds my chin. He doesn't push me to move my head, just rests his fingertips against my jaw with hardly any pressure.

"So what's the problem?" He asks, and I can hear his disbelief.

"There isn't one," I admit.

A brief silence falls. I watch him shuffle his bad leg once or twice, and his fingertips travel back into my hair. All kinds of good feelings aggravate my senses.

"So," Gold says after what feels like a torturous age, "Are you going to kiss me again, or am I going to stay here watching the top of your head?"

I raise my neck to meet his eyes, and the hand in my hair slips to my neck. His confident grin makes me feel a little angry somewhere in the back of my mind, and I resolve to put an end to it immediately.

I step forward and kiss him as fully as I can muster, and I realise immediately that half of that confidence was false, because his hand falls away in shock and I hear his stick clatter to the ground. I consider breaking off for a brief moment, but it's then that Gold regains composure. His lips start to move in earnest against mine, and I feel those warm hands wrapping back around my neck and shoulders, and it feels so natural that it could almost make me suspicious.

When we break for air he grins at me in earnest, and I catch one of the club lights reflecting in his golden teeth.

"Let's get out of here," I say.


	10. Chapter 10

A glance around the dark apartment reveals that Mary Margaret is upstairs asleep. Emma shuts the door behind me with some care, then takes my hand and leads me to the couch. I settle beside her noiselessly, resting my cane on the floor. Her arms beckon, pulling me against her, and we kiss for what must be the hundredth time by now.

She's quite right, of course, that nothing about it feels wrong. I'm sure that somewhere inside me lies the knowledge that she is the keeper of the dagger, that Emma Swan has all the power over me that anyone could wish for, but when her lips are on mine I don't seem able to care. Her kisses are deep, warm and ever-eager, and the passion that warms my blood evades all reason.

Emma shuffles in my arms until her upper body is laid back on the couch, and I follow, pursuing her kiss. After a moment I pull back and survey her lying there.

"What?" She whispers, half a smile on her tired lips.

I slip my jacket off my shoulders, smiling down at her. Catching on, she too shrugs off her red leather jacket, writhing out of it until her legs are up on the couch overtaking where I'm perched. I loosen my tie and yank it down from my neck, just about managing to throw it aside before temptation gets the better of me.

I rest my body onto hers and she runs a hand down my back. I can feel the warmth of her touch through my thin shirt, and a pulse of nerves runs down my spine.

"Hey," Emma whispers in the silence, "Don't think you're getting it all in one night just cause I brought you home."

Even as she says it, her hand travels down to the base of my back, where she starts pulling the shirt loose.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my dear" I reply.

She giggles at this, and I have to kiss her to remind her to be quiet. It appears she needs quiet some reminding before I'm able to surface for breath. I watch her grinning up at me, feel her smooth hands running the length of my back, until one of them slips between us, stroking up my chest.

"This shirt needs to come off before I break your buttons," she whispers, hungry hands pressing on my skin. I can only obey, reaching one-handed for the buttons until she starts to help.

And then an unfamiliar voice says "_Stop_".

I freeze, looking around the room.

"Emma, did you hear that?" I whisper.

"Hear what?" She asks.

And with a belated horror I realise what is happening. Before I can speak again, the voice commands:

_No more words, Rumpelstiltskin._

I can feel my consciousness dimming, and Emma's strained whisper is a mile off, echoing somewhere.

"Gold? What is it?"

_Come to me._

My legs move on their own, and I find myself most bizarrely in no need of a cane. I can hardly feel my feet touching earth as I leave the apartment. A faint sensation of something pulling me backwards surfaces, but then it fades.

"The dagger."

Emma voice is tinny and brittle, as though she is talking softly across a large hall.

"Gold is it the dagger? Does someone have hold of you?"

I wonder why she sounds so panicked, when clearly all is well.

_Leave her there. Come to me._

A blackness clouds my vision until I see only the words the voice has spoken. I know only of my destination. And I obey.


	11. Chapter 11

August opens the door in his underwear, and I wonder irately if he's ever done that when Emma has come a-knocking.

"Mr. Gold," he says sleepily. "What can I do for you at this ungodly hour?"

I barge past him into the room, hear him shutting the door behind us.

"This plan's gone all to hell," I say, gritting my teeth.

"How come?" He asks. "She got the dagger safe and sound. Henry saw to that."

August settles himself on his bed, reaching for a shirt. I realise with a start that his elbows are looking a little more glossy than they should. Mapled, even.

"You're changing rather quicker than I'd expected," I say.

August looks at his elbows, then quickly throws the shirt over himself.

"I'd say you're doing pretty well with Swan," he says, clearly willing me not to talk about his transformation, "She's open to some kind of magic now, at least."

"That's not the problem." I reply.

"Is it Henry?" August asks. "Because I can steer him off course if that's what you need, keep him out of the way whilst you work on her?"

I just shake my head, aware that the shock of my situation has not yet settled. I've yet to even dream about what Emma must think, the way I just disappeared without explanation. And that explanation, when it happens, is not going to be pretty.

...

"Freakouts are normal in men of his age, right?" Ruby asks.

"Um, well, I suppose..." Mary Margaret replies.

I try to bury my head in the Storybrooke Mirror so much that the print is likely to give me a black nose.

"Maybe he's impotent!"

I drop the paper, glaring at Ruby sharply.

"That is not helpful," I say. I turn my head to Mary Margaret. "Did you have to tell her?"

She looks at me with large, sorry eyes. "She wheedled it out of me." We both look to Ruby, whose happy smile burns a hole in my brain. "You know how she is."

I nod hopelessly. I guess it doesn't really matter how many people know, seeing as now it looks like nothing will come of it.

"You really couldn't get hold of him?" Mary Margaret asks.

"His cell rang all night," I reply. "But nothing."

"And you tried the shop?" She asks.

"Closed all morning," I say. "And I don't think he's been in there since close on Friday."

"Don't you have any other way to reach him?" Ruby asks. I drop my head, dejected.

But then I realise that I do. I have a sure-fire way to bring him straight to me, no questions asked. A way to find out what the hell's the going on, and why he thinks he can just take off without a moment's notice. After what we were about to do, what I was going to give to him, I think I damn well deserve an answer.

"I just thought of something," I say, grabbing my keys. "I'll let you know if I find him."

...

I reach the station in record time, pleased to see that nobody is around. Sprinting into the office, I peel back the posters to reveal the secret safe. Once I've called him, he'll be here in no time, and everything will be straightened out. For better or worse.

I fumble for my key, turning it into the lock. And I vaguely remember something pressing about not abusing the power of the dagger, but my rage at being abandoned outweighs my conscience. What gives him the right to do this to me? To mess with me like this?

It's just plain cruel.

Eyes stinging with the familiar pressure that comes before the tears, I throw open the safe and fling my hand in for the blade, thinking of all the things I could make him do for deserting me.

My palm hits the bottom of empty safe hard.

...

I look around August's shabby room, trying to draw my mind away from feeling the fear of what I have to admit.

"An unexpected complication has arisen," I say.

August watches me, blue eyes wide in expectation.

"Someone else now has my dagger."

"Who, Gold?" He asks, voice quieted by surprise.

I swallow a lump caught in my throat.

"Regina Mills," I reply.


	12. Chapter 12

Mary Margaret hands me a fresh cup of chocolate, sprinkling powdered cinnamon over the top of the cream. I can feel her watching me, irritatingly patient, because she knows I won't be able to help myself from telling her sooner or later. Sometimes her trustworthy smile and kind eyes frustrate me, even though I know I should be grateful that somebody cares about me at all. But guy trouble was definitely easier to handle when other people didn't know I _had_ guy trouble.

"I couldn't reach him," I finally admit, scooping up a hefty helping of cream from the top of my cup. "I thought I might be able to get him... from the station. But there was no response." I think about the empty space where the dagger lay. I guess he didn't trust me to guard it after all. Perhaps last night was even just a ploy to get me away from it, for him to send someone in to get it back.

"So, are you going to look for him tomorrow?" Mary Margaret asks. "He'll be opening up the shop Monday morning, right?"

A little warm bubble of anger bursts in my stomach.

"No, screw him," I say. "He can come to me. I have a job to do too."

Mary Margaret nods her head. "Good for you," she replies. "Who needs him anyway?"

"Exactly."

The anger fades, and a sad little memory crosses my mind. I gaze across the apartment to the couch, and I can see his face in the dark, grin a mile wide, feel his warm hands wrapped around me. And then the horrible moment returns when he upped and left, that emotionless look on his face.

The glossy look in his eyes.

And I think of the missing dagger again, and a possibility enters my head.

The doorbell rings, and I'm on my feet before I even know it. The moment I click the lock the door flies open, and Gold rushes past me in a blur of tailored suit and shiny hair.

"What the hell?" I say, stumbling back.

He turns sharply, putting a finger to his lips. His eyes are dark and serious, and for the first time I notice the screwdriver in his other hand. I give him a puzzled look, but he just keeps the finger at his lips a moment longer, repeating the gesture to Mary Margaret.

We watch in amazement as Gold sets aside his cane on the kitchen floor. He kneels beside the phone, using the screwdriver swiftly to dismantle the box on the wall leading to the phone line. Gold crouches, peering into the cavity in the wall, then feeling around inside, until we hear a crunching sound. He produces a little black box with some odd wires sticking out here and there, dropping it onto the floor.

And with another sharp move, he takes up his cane and smashes the box to bits.

Gold rises to his feet, looking at me properly for the first time. His eyes have lost their hard edge at last.

"Regina's been tapping your phone," is all he says.

And his grave expression tells me the rest. It tells me why the dagger is missing from my safe, and why he vanished in the middle of what should have been a night to remember.

"And that's why you had to leave," I reply.

Gold casts a quick look at Mary Margaret, considering my phrasing.

"I'm sorry, but yes" he says.

I nod, and a relieved smile breaks out onto my face.

"It's okay," I reply. "I'm just glad that's the reason."

"Sorry," says Mary Margaret, rounding the kitchen counter to view the smashed phone bug. "But how is it okay that Regina's tapping our phone? And actually, Mr. Gold, how do _you_ know she was?"

Gold turns, ever prepared, slipping off his jacket as he speaks.

"It's not okay, of course. It has terrible implications for us all."

Gold hangs his jacket over a kitchen stool, coming to lean on the back of the couch near where I stand. The thought of Regina possessing that dagger shudders through me as I look at him. So very nearly mine. The only thing in this damn town that wasn't under her control. And now she's got him too.

"Emma spoke to me last night on your phone here," he continues, "And we talked about an artefact that she was looking after for me at the station. Regina now has that artefact."

"And, well, as soon as Gold realised he rushed off to investigate," I jump in, afraid that Gold might give too much away. The last thing I need is to have to start the whole dagger-magic conversation with Mary Margaret right now. "He didn't even have a minute to tell me."

"I know you tried to call me," he says, looking to me with an apologetic curve in his lips. "I've been checking my phone line," he explains, "checking the shop for bugs. I even had the boys give the club the once-over. This was the last place on my list."

"And sure enough, it's us she's out to get again," says Mary Margaret, folding her arms. She looks between me and Gold, then moves to get her jacket. "Ugh," she sighs. "I'm going to walk out my anger a little. I'll give you two some time here."

"I'll get her back for this," I promise her. Mary Margaret gives me a little smile.

"I know you will," she says.

And with that she leaves me and Gold together, the couch between us. I circle it unsurely, approaching him. He watches me softly, and when I touch his arm he pulls me into an embrace. I let him, the comfort and excitement of his touch masking some of my worry.

"Thought I wasn't going to get to do this again," I mumble into his purple shirt.

"You might not want to, when you hear the rest," he replies.

I pull back a little, keeping hold of his side with one hand. I take in a little breath.

"So she called you, with the dagger?" I ask.

He nods, and I can feel his hand toying with the ends of my hair behind my shoulder. He chews his lip in uncomfortably for a moment.

"I don't remember anything that happened," he explains. "After a while under the dagger's control, it's like a trance. Total blackout."

"Okay," I say with a nod.

"But I woke up in the Mayor's office this morning," he says. Gold turns his eyes to the floor. "And I think you ought to know... that it was without my clothes."


End file.
